France has reached for a tool it rarely uses. After an emergency meeting of ministers on Monday, Sébastien Lecornu, the prime minister, told the country’s prefects to impose “local and partial” curfews wherever the rioting of the past weekend could flare up again. A blanket curfew for whole cities such as Paris was “no question”, he said, but he left the door open to a state of emergency if things get worse.
The first orders followed within hours. In the capital, nobody may linger overnight on République square or in the Les Halles quarter, two areas hit hard by looters. In the north, Lille ordered curfews for two nights, as did Douai, Denain and Wattignies; Nice imposed one that applies only to minors, and Marseille banned all gatherings for the day.
The government is also admitting mistakes. Laurent Nuñez, the interior minister, admitted that officers had been overwhelmed and had lost their grip in several cities. Intelligence had predicted around 200,000 marchers; upwards of 500,000 turned out, and 60,000 officers were not enough to stop organised groups of rioters on the fringes. Nuñez offered to resign, but President Emmanuel Macron refused and ordered a security review instead. Roughly 2,400 arrests were made and nearly a thousand officers were injured; some 2,000 shops were plundered and Limoges lost its historic town hall to fire.
Lecornu promised money for damaged towns, a partial-unemployment scheme for workers who cannot do their jobs, and a law to make vandals pay for the destruction. About 200 investigators are combing CCTV footage for ringleaders.
None of this has calmed the street. On Monday students blocked the Louvre, which stayed shut, and unions have called new strikes for 5 November. Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire placed the blame squarely on the national government, saying it had failed to keep order.
